Sorry I've Been Having a Fight With Some Idiots

I wasn't even going to mention this -- I don't think enough of you care about about blogger spats to make it a post -- but I've been annoyed on Twitter.

I'll make this very quick so I can put up a real post.

David Frum's and Andrew Sullivan's creature, the "conservative" (or something) Conor Friedersdorf (no idea if that's the correct spelling, who cares), put up a gotcha type post attacking Michelle Malkin for an 11-year-old column. In that column, she talked about the possibility that Iraqi agents could steal across the unprotected Southern border to commit terrorism.

Bear in mind Iraq was a sponsor of terrorism and bear in mind the war drums against Iraq were beginning to be beat. Also bear in mind this was about a half-year after 9/11, when most of us were trying to anticipate possible terrorist threats, given that we'd completely failed to anticipate 9/11.

Well, Conor flattered his liberal audience at the Atlantic (but remember, he's their "conservative" writer or something) by saying ha-ha, no Iraqi terrorists came into America to commit terrorism, across the Mexican border or otherwise; isn't Michelle Malkin quite a silly goose?

At this point John Sexton, who knows how to work the google machine, put up a post noting that Conor Friedersdorf had expressed either the exact same points, or, according to Conor, similar but not exactly the same points as Malkin did -- terrorists crossing the border, dual loyalties of recent Muslim immigrants -- late as 2006.

So... doesn't this mean Conor Friedersdorf is quite a silly goose? Apparently not, but let's put that aside for the moment.

At this point I jumped in on Twitter to begin asking Conor when -- given that he was now our self-appointed Minister of Online Hygiene -- he would be similarly doing a What a Silly Goose piece about his former boss/mentor Andrew Sullivan, and write up a fulsome attack on Sullivan's many conspiracy theories.

There is a part II to this stupid thing but Twitchy hasn't collected it up yet so that'll have to wait.

By the way, Conor did write about Sullivan's Trig Trutherism.

By defending Sullivan. By claiming that Sarah Palin was courting such suspicions because they helped her politically.

He disagrees with Sullivan that Palin faked a pregnancy (gee thanks for that bold stance) but then claims that maybe Palin's been advised to keep the proof of her birthing of Trig secret, in order to bait her critics into talking about her.

One explanation for the disparity in evidence: the persistence of questions about Trig helps Sarah Palin. All along, she has savvily used the notion that the media is treating her unfairly to enhance her popularity. An amoral political strategist would advise her to keep hard evidence of Trig’s maternity hidden at all costs in the hope that critics would continue questioning it — if Professor Bernstein and I, both of us huge Sarah Palin critics, doubt the merits of this line of inquiry, imagine how the average American reacts to it, and how the Sarah Palin base reacts. For better or worse, we live in a country where the politics of umbrage are very effective, and Ms. Palin is expert at them. Indeed I fear that speculation about Trig’s maternity increases the chance that she’ll win the 2012 GOP nomination. If a savvy political analyst can be found who disagrees with that assessment, I’d be surprised.

I'm savvy and I disagree. So I guess Conor is surprised.

Palin really rode Trig Trutherism to the nomination, huh? Like a stallion.

Conor then disagrees with Sullivan's claim that Palin's alleged parentage of Trig is the greatest, most odious lie ever perpetrated on the public... because Conor can think of even greater lies.

Later in his post, Andrew writes, “if Palin has lied about this, it’s the most staggering, appalling deception in the history of American politics.” I think that on reflection he’d reconsider. How staggering a lie is must relate to consequences. Consider Dick Cheney and the Iraq War, or the treatment of detainees at black sites around the world, just to name two political lies that resulted in loss of life and incalculable damage to our country.

So you know -- he's been a real bear on calling out His Side* for their unhinged remarks.

And now I'll do a real post.

Sorry.

* I have no idea what side Friedersdorf claims to be on. I don't know if he's still posing as a conservative so he can serve as House Conservative to liberal outfits, or if he's now confessed his actual partisan affiliation. I know rather little about him. This comes as a major surprise to him, as I'll note later.

posted by Ace at 02:38 PM

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